Commercial food product slicers are widely utilized as rapid and effective means for slicing meat, cheese, vegetables and other food products. The slicers commonly include a rotatable, disc-like blade, and a reciprocating tray that brings the food product into contact with the rotating blade to cut a slice from the food product. Most slicers also include a movable gauge plate that adjusts the position of the food product relative the blade, which varies the thickness of the slices cut off of the food product. The gauge plate typically has a “closed” position, wherein the gauge plate is slightly raised relative the blade such that the food product cannot be cut by the blade.
Most existing slicers have the knife mounted permanently by using screws. The knife cannot be removed except by use of a conventional tool to remove the screws.
One existing slicer includes a special tool to remove knife. The knife is permanently mounted on the mounting hub by using screws, then a rotatable plate and a fixed plate are mounted on the top of the knife through another set of the screws, then the knife and mounting hub are inserted on the slicer through three spring loaded pins on the knife drive shaft. The rotatable plate has ramp features on it. By rotating the rotatable plate 90 degrees using a tool, the three pins move up, and the knife and mounting hub are held through the rotatable plate by these pins. To remove knife, the tool is inserted into the center hole, aligning three drive pins on the tool with the three notches on the rotatable plate. The rotatable plate is rotated back 90 degrees to unload from the three spring loaded pins and retreat the knife and mounting hub from pins. This design is expensive and complicated. The knife and the mounting hub are removed together, leaving an opening on the slicer, so the water could potentially flow inside to the knife drive system. The knife sharp edge is also exposed on the removal tool.